Sometimes the most admirable, well-meaning attempts to protect and save a seemingly innocent child can ultimately cause life-threatening harm to all of the unsuspecting adults in heir lives. That’s certainly the case for the protagonists of filmmaker Daria Polatin’s new Netflix limited television series, ‘Devil in Ohio.’
On the horror-mystery drama, actress Emily Deschanel’s character, Midwestern hospital psychiatrist Dr. Suzanne Mathis, decides to temporarily foster co-star Madeleine Arthur’s character, the mysterious Mae, after she escapees from a cult. However, the girl’s arrival threatens to tear the doctor’s family apart.
Polatin co-created, executive produced and served as the showrunner on the project. She also wrote all eight episodes of ‘Devil in Ohio,’ which she based on her 2017 best-selling young adult book of the same name.
All of the episodes of the ‘Devil in Ohio’ screen adaptation are premiering today on Netflix. Besides Deschanel and Arthur, the suspense thriller also stars Sam Jaeger as Peter, Gerardo Celasco as Detective Lopez, Xaria Dotson as Jules, Alisha Newton as Helen and Naomi Tan as Dani.
‘Devil In Ohio’ follows Suzanne as her world is turned upside down when she decides to protect Mae, a fragile teenager on the run from a cult. As Suzanne’s teenage daughter Jules begins to suspect there’s more to Mae’s story, a series of incidents – seemingly brought on by Mae’s presence – leave the family in chaos. Soon the Mathis family is fighting for survival against a strange cult while Suzanne and a local police detective try to unravel the clues of Mae’s past and sinister happenings in the town she escaped.
Polatin generously took the time recently to talk about co-creating, executive producing, showrunning and scribing ‘Devil In Ohio’ during an exclusive interview over Zoom. Among other things, the filmmaker discussed why she was inspired to create the screen adaptation of her novel for Netflix; how she approached adapting the book for television; and what her experience was like of working with Deschanel, Arthur and the rest of the cast while developing both their characters’ personalities and physicalities.
ShockYa exclusively interviews Daria Polatin, the co-creator-showrunner-executive producer-writer of Netflix's horror mystery drama mini-series, 'Devil In Ohio.'